The Binary Planet

Disclaimer: This
story is purely fictional and any resemblance of characters to real
individuals is purely coincidental and unintentional. Some characters
may be gay and underage, and at times engage in homosexual acts.
Obviously anyone uncomfortable with this should not be reading the
story, and the reader assumes responsibility for the legality of
reading this type of story where they live. The implication that
Malaysia may execute homosexuals at some time in the future is based
on current events in Uganda and is not meant in any way to be a slight
against the current citizens of Malaysia. The author retains full
copyright and permission must be obtained prior to duplication of
the story in any form.

About this Story:
Great care has been taken to portray only that which is theoretically
possible. Loran is a fictitious planet with a year that is 161.6 Earth
days in length, or 44% as long as an Earth Year. A Martian year is
687 Earth days long, or 88% longer than an Earth year, and 4.25 times
longer than a Loran year. A day on Loran is 23 hours, 47 minutes and
thirteen seconds long, and on Mars it is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35
seconds in length. Gravity on Loran is 67% of that on Earth and on
Mars it is 38% that on Earth, which is 57% of that on Loran. Atmospheric
pressure on Loran is 36% that of Earth, but the oxygen concentration
is nearly three times greater, yielding a nearly identical partial
pressure of oxygen. On Mars the atmospheric pressure is just 1% that
on Earth, which is 2.8% of that on Loran, and the Martian atmosphere is
virtually devoid of oxygen.

Part 2 - The Anomaly

We were
still too far away to get a detailed visual of the planet but we were
now close
enough to get a more extensive analysis of its makeup. It was as I was
conducting an electromagnetic survey that I noticed an unusual pattern
of radio
waves - an anomaly. Until then, it had been difficult to
differentiate radio emissions
emanating from the planet from the background radiation of space,
particularly
when its star generated significant amounts of electromagnetic
radiation. Now
I could definitely tell that there were significant quantities of
radio waves
coming from Arkenza 3a itself, and that there were patterns
that were not random.

"Sankar, I
think you'd better look at this," I said once I'd compiled a full
analysis.
There was no doubt about it - a spectral analysis demonstrated
unique patterns
associated with narrow frequency bands. In other words, someone or
something
was making use of the radio spectrum to transmit large amounts of
data.

Peering over
my shoulder, Sankar said, "Fuck! No doubt about it. There must be
intelligent
life of some sort on Arkenza 3a . . . either
that, or someone was
there and left a hell of a lot of technology behind." I'd never
heard Sankar swear like that before - at least not in front
of me.

"Judging
from the shear volume of data," I added, "I'd say its an active
civilization . . . not the remnants of a past one."

Sighing,
Sankar said, "I'm afraid I tend to agree." Hesitating for only a
moment, he
said, "Why don't you see if you can isolate a pattern in the data?
Maybe we can
decrypt a language, or even images."

Smiling at
Sankar for giving me so much responsibility, I replied, "Will do,
Sank. It'll
be my honor to complete this task."

It took days
of analysis using our ship's computers, but I was ultimately able to
separate
the radio communications into a series of different types of
signal - some of
them carrying what sounded like several spoken languages, others
carrying what
sounded like music, but it was unlike any music I'd ever heard, yet
others
carrying moving images, and the vast majority carrying pure data.
Developing a
series of digital filters, I eventually made it possible to listen to
or watch
any one of the individual channels of data. Some of the channels were
obviously
intended for two-way communications, while others appeared to be
solely for
entertainment purposes.

"They sure
are funny-looking creatures," I commented as Sankar watched one of the
video
channels with me.

"What amazes
me is how similar they are to us much more than how they are
different," he
replied. "It almost looks like there are two species, however," he
added. "They
all have the same basic features, but half of them are dressed
completely
differently, are slightly smaller than the others, and seem to wear
facial
paint of some sort. That stuff on top of their heads is sculpted
differently,
too . . . it's longer and fancier than it is on most of
the others. I don't
think they're a different species, but I wonder why their outward
appearance is
so different. They speak with a higher pitch, too. Do they choose
to be that way, or is there some real, physical difference
between one half of the population and the other?"

"Well, since
we have a lot of time yet before we get there, perhaps in the meantime
we can
figure it all out," I suggested.

"Oh, we
can't go there now," Sankar countered. "There are so many reasons they
must
never know we exist. For one thing, they might be hostile, or they
might
misunderstand our intentions. It could be very dangerous for us to go
there.
For another thing, we don't want to contaminate their natural
development with
our own technology and that of the Cereneans. Most importantly,
however, we
don't want to take a chance on leading the Cereneans to them. Doing
that would
be a disaster for everyone concerned."

"So what are
we going to do?" I asked.

"We need to
find another place where we can live for a while, out of view of the
life on
Arkenza 3a. Once we find such a place, we can
work on mining minerals and fabricating new components with which to
repair
this ship, and then we can look for a better home . . .
one that can sustain
us but that isn't inhabited by intelligent life."

"Where are
we going to look for such a place?" I asked. "Will we need to set
course for
another star?"

Shaking his
head, he replied, "It's too late for that. We're already in the
deceleration
phase and changing course would require us to accelerate in a
completely new
direction. Besides which, our life support systems could fail at any
time. We can't
take a chance on extending our journey any more than we have already."

"Then where
will we go?" I asked again.

"Arkenza 3b is a possibility, but life there
would be very difficult. There's no atmosphere, gravity is a quarter
of what it
is on Loran, the planet rotates only once every 28 days, making for
extremes of
day and night, and the mineral resources are very limited, which would
make it
difficult to ever get off that world. If we set up camp on the far
side . . .
the side facing away from Arkenza 3a, we could probably avoid
detection
for some time, but I think the risk of eventual discovery is too
great."

Pulling up
data on our computers, he continued. "Arkenza 1 is similar to Arkenza 3b
but, being much closer to their sun,
the temperatures would be hot enough to melt metal. It would be a
challenge to
survive there.

"Arkenza 2
has a very thick, toxic atmosphere and a runaway greenhouse effect. On
one
hand, we could certainly remain hidden there for a long time, but just
as we'd
be hidden, we couldn't communicate with the resistance back home. And
if our
environmental systems failed, we'd die a very quick, painful death.

"Arkenza 4
is promising. Gravity is 57% of that on Loran, which although
challenging,
would be survivable. The atmosphere is only about three percent that
of Loran,
however, and it's mostly carbon dioxide, which means there might as
well not be an atmosphere. On the other hand, we
can make use of that atmosphere, concentrating it and using it to
generate
oxygen and food in our hydroponics bay. There's also enough water in
the
atmosphere and below the surface to sustain us indefinitely.
Temperatures,
although very cold, are survivable there as well, so it won't take a
lot of
energy to keep warm. Of course there's no guarantee the inhabitants of
Arkenza
3a won't be able to find us there, so we'll have to live
underground to escape detection.

"Beyond that
is an asteroid belt, and then four proto-stars . . .
gas giants that are too
small to have undergone nuclear ignition. The first two have planetary
systems
of their own that might be worth looking at. Unfortunately, without
any source
of light besides Arkenza, they're mostly frozen wastelands of little
use to us.
I do see that some are geologically active, so they have internal
sources of
heat, but none of them has a viable atmosphere.

"Taking all
of this into account, I'd say it looks like Arkenza 4 is our best
bet," he
stated in conclusion.

That was
five Loran years ago - five very difficult years. During the time
it took us to
finish our deceleration from near-light velocity and to reach our
destination
of Arkenza 4. We spent nearly all of our time learning everything we
could
about life on Arkenza 3a. After all, if we were going to be
neighbors, we needed to understand them as best we could.

It took us
some time, but we eventually deciphered and taught ourselves the
dominant
language, something called English. Perhaps the biggest surprise about
the
people of Earth, as they called their planet, was that they exhibited
sexual
dimorphism! There weren't two species, but they had separate male and
female
forms. We did not have anything like this on Loran, nor did the
Cereneans
exhibit any sexual differentiation that we were aware of. Some of the
plants on
Loran had different male and female gametocytes, which is how we knew
that such
a thing was possible, but all sexual reproduction in animal life on
Loran
involved the fusion of two identical eggs. It had never occurred to us
that
there could be any evolutionary advantage for it to be otherwise.

We learned
much about the people of Earth during the remaining years of our
voyage. They
were not nearly as advanced as we were and were still at war with
each
other. Sankar and I both agreed that it would be wise to stay away
from them.
Instead we would build our home on Arkenza 4, the planet they called
Mars.

Building a
settlement on Mars was no small task. We had to excavate tons of rock
in which
to build. We quickly discovered that the Earthlings had established
satellites
around Mars from which they undoubtedly observed and mapped the
surface,
perhaps for future mineral exploration. We had to be very careful to
hide the
material we excavated, making it appear to be debris from a meteor
impact, and
we had to make sure neither we ourselves nor any of our equipment was
visible
when a satellite was overhead.

There was
also the matter of power. The reactors on our spaceship would only
provide
enough power to keep us alive and to maintain an underground
hydroponics bay
for at most a few Loran years. We had a facility on board for
manufacturing
photovoltaic cells, but the raw materials would need to be mined and
refined
from Martian minerals, and we would have to devise a strategy for
camouflaging
the cells so that they would not be visible to the orbiting
satellites.

I never
worked so hard in my life, but we built our habitat on Mars, mined and
refined
the raw materials we needed to manufacture photovoltaic cells and
learned how
to make them sufficiently thin and transparent that they would not be
apparent
from orbit. The amount of power generated by our photovoltaic array
was barely
adequate, but once the last of our fuel for the reactors was
exhausted, it was
all we had.

Sankar and I
got by surprisingly well on Mars, passing the time by continuing my
studies and
by watching videos from Earth. We would have liked to have begun work
on
repairs to our spaceship so that we could eventually leave Mars, but
there was
barely enough power to keep us alive let alone to build anything. Our
dreams of finding a more suitable home would have to wait until we
eventually
expanded the photovoltaic array to four times its current size - a
painstakingly slow process.

We were making steady progress until just
over a Martian year ago, when our home was hit by a sand storm. Being
underground, we survived the storm very well. However, without any
sunlight to
power our photovoltaic array, our batteries would have been quickly
depleted,
so we were forced to scale back our power usage to survive. Of
necessity, we
cut power to the hydroponics bay by half, even knowing we might
ultimately
starve and be unable to fully process our exhaled carbon dioxide
should the
power not be restored before the plants died.

Once the
storm had passed, it became apparent that the photovoltaic array had
been
severely damaged. It would take months or even years to fully restore
power.
There simply wasn't enough power to sustain the both of us.

I'll never
forget that day, one Martian year ago, when Sankar approached me and
said,
"Lans, there's no way we can both survive. It's just not
possible. You're the younger of the two of us and you
have the best long-term chance of surviving and completing the
objectives of
our mission. I know you didn't sign up for this, but it would
literally kill me
if anything happened to you.

"Before you
get any half-brained ideas, I've already taken a lethal dose of
actenolol and
will likely die within a few hours. It's too late for you to stop me.
Lans, I
had to do this or I know you might have tried to end your own life to
save
mine, and I could have never had that. All I ask is that you do
everything you
can to stay alive and do your best to try to complete the mission.

"Do
everything you can, however, to avoid contact with Earth, even if it
does mean
you have to die to prevent it. The one circumstance in which you may
contact
Earth is to warn them if you find the Cereneans are going to attack.
In that
case and that case alone, you should do all you can to help them. No
one should have to live under
Cerenean rule."

We both
cried our eyes out that afternoon, right up until Sankar took his last
breath.
That night I buried him in the Martian soil.

It was a
lonely year after that. I restored the photovoltaic array to its
former
capacity and even increased it somewhat. I was also well on the way in
making
repairs to the spaceship, although it would still take several
years - Martian years - before I would have
enough fuel to leave this planet, and even then I had no idea where I
would go.

With little
else to do, I spent my time watching videos from Earth - what
they call
television - and downloaded and read as much as I could from
Earth. I immersed
myself in learning about Earth culture, just so I could have something
to do
more than anything else. Were it not for my time spent studying the
inhabitants
of Earth, I'd have been bored out of my mind.

Even after
the one year anniversary of Sankar's death had come and passed, I
continued
repairing the ship, continued generating fuel with which to ultimately
leave
Mars, continued my studies of Earth, and continued to scan the heavens
for any
sign of a Cerenean attack.